2 more Lackland trainers accused in trysts

A Lackland AFB staff sergeant today implicated two fellow training instructors in the growing sex scandal at the base.

Staff Sgt. Peter Vega-Maldonado, 32, pleaded guilty to two charges stemming from his relationship with a 21-year-old airman. In exchange for a reduced sentence, he agreed to testify against two other trainers he said had illicit relationships with women.

The judge, Col. Don Eller, gave Maldonado 90 days in jail, 30 days hard labor while restricted to the base, reduction from staff sergeant to airman and forfeiture of $500 a month pay for four months.

Commanders ordered an investigation into possible misconduct among the Air Force’s training corps here after Staff Sgt. Luis A. Walker was accused of having sexual contact with 10 women in basic and technical training.

Maldonado was charged with violating a Nov. 12 order not to have contact with trainees on the base, including the woman, whom he supervised in basic training until being removed from her unit.

No-contact orders were issued the same day to the other two trainers Maldonado has implicated. The two are assigned with Maldonado to the 331st Training Squadron.

All four trainers have been removed from their jobs.

Walker faces life in prison after being charged with rape, aggravated sexual assault, sodomy, obstruction of justice and violating the Air Education and Training Command’s professional conduct code.

The Air Force has said Vega-Maldonado was the latest but likely not the last instructor to be charged with having improper relationships with students on the base. He was accused of being involved with the airman after she graduated from basic training.

A charge sheet stated that Maldonado had an “unprofessional relationship” with her between Nov. 23 and Jan. 27 . Evidence presented in the case today showed that he had a sexual relationship with the woman after she began technical training at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Miss.

So far, the victims in all four cases have been women, with many of the relationships being characterized by both sides as consensual, even though the trainers had authority over the women.

Authorities have said little about their investigation and until today offered few details on specific allegations made against Vega-Maldonado, who joined the Air Force in December 2003 and had been a military training instructor for a little more than two years.

Until this morning, it wasn’t clear if Maldonado had been cooperating with prosecutors. Air Force spokesman Gerry Proctor said the reason Maldonado’s case was referred to a special court-martial – unlike Walker, who goes on trial April 30 – is because it wasn’t as egregious.

“They look at what the factors are in the prohibited relationship and if there was coercion or in the case of Walker, there was an (alleged) assault, it just escalates in the court,” he said.

Frank Spinner, a Colorado Springs, Colo., attorney who represented a B-52 pilot accused of having sex with a married enlisted man, said there’s a downside for prosecutors cutting a plea bargain as well as the obvious upside – potentially effective testimony.

“The prosecution’s essentially buying their testimony and so a lot of defense attorneys look on this stuff as of questionable credibility,” he said. “Now sometimes it’s true and sometimes it isn’t.”

The investigation is just one reaction from Lackland commanders to the allegations against Walker. Top base officials are warning new recruits to be alert to improper advances and report them. The Air Force also has conducted an as-yet-unpublished survey of 6,000 trainees conducted several weeks ago.

Proctor, who is with the 37th Training Wing, said no one surveyed accused other trainers of sexual misconduct. A summary of the survey hasn’t been completed.

He said it found that most of trainees felt “that they either had or felt very comfortable using their chain of command” to raise issues. The numbers were far higher than a survey done in 2008, he said.

Proctor could not say if any other trainers might be charged, but noted the investigation was continuing and was “nowhere near over. We’re looking at everything.”